pfMENTUM

pfMENTUM: Dedicated to creative music—and the musicians that make it.

pfMENTUM (pronounced, pee-eff-mehn-tuhm) began in 1995 as a newsletter associated with the internationally acclaimed Ventura New Music Festival. The VNMF, and its associated events, was a long-running concert series that featured creative musicians from around the world in the beautiful Ventura City Hall (Ventura, California) overlooking the Pacific Ocean. In 1999, Jeff Kaiser expanded pfMENTUM into a record label (adding Angry Vegan soon after, eventually dropping the newsletter) with the goal of enabling innovative sonic artists with releasing their music into the world.

Our guiding principle is to assist and enable musical artists working with experimental and creative forms to distribute their product to radio stations and reviewers in the U.S. and abroad and to also provide assistance in the graphic design and manufacturing process.

Unlike traditional labels, pfMENTUM is not based on a corporate profit model; rather, it is based on a collective/community model under which our artists maintain complete control and ownership of their work and finished product. This is in contrast to traditional labels that own recording masters, take a percentage of publishing and more. Yet, like traditional labels, because pfMENTUM has been directly involved with the production of more than 100 releases (as label, label subsidiary and manufacturing consultant), we are able to negotiate discounted manufacturing prices that are not usually available to artists as individual. We pass these savings on to the artist with no markup. The artist pays the manufacturing fees, and keeps the bulk of the product.

We receive our payment in the form of physical copies out of the run. Proceeds from sales of our share of the product are used to fund pfMENTUM’s website, ongoing development of the distribution database and physical storage. The owners and managers of the label, being artists themselves, are not driven by profits but by a belief that in operating collectively under a common banner, all members can benefit from the combined audience who come to learn about the variety of creative work being done by the artists under the pfMENTUM organizational umbrella.